The executive committee of the board of trustees of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta has appointed alumnus Rev. Matthew Wesley Williams as interim president of the school.
Rev. Matthew Wesley WilliamsWilliams will begin transitioning into the role July 10 and will assume the post upon the July 31 retirement of the current president, Dr. Edward L. Wheeler. The full trustee board is expected to ratify the interim appointment later this summer.
Wheeler said he is pleased with Williams’ appointment.
“Matt is uniquely gifted to effectively lead ITC during this period of transition,” said Wheeler. “He is a strategic thinker and has exceptional organizational expertise. He knows theological education and the challenges the enterprise faces. However, he is also acutely aware and appreciative of ITC’s history and the potential the school has to make a positive contribution to the needed transformation of the academy, the church and local and global communities.”
Wesley is vice president of strategic initiatives for the Forum for Theological Exploration (FTE), where he has been instrumental in helping to restructure FTE’s operations to better achieve its mission in a changing religious landscape. He established FTE’s Institutional Doctoral Network to teach and train theological executive leaders how to address systemic barriers to desirable change in their respective institutional contexts.
Williams said he is “deeply humbled and honored to return to my beloved alma mater to help facilitate the beginning of the next chapter of the Interdenominational Theological Center’s life and legacy.”
“I am clear that our call is not to merely ‘save the ITC’ as we know it,” he added. “This is the beginning of an effort to co-create the ITC our communities need. This is village work. I look forward to joining with ITC’s faculty, staff, students, alumni and allies to co-author this next chapter.”
Wesley earned a master of divinity degree from ITC and bachelor’s degrees in psychology, and philosophy and religion, from Florida A&M University. He is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
